Sweet Potato & Olive Filo Pastry Tunisian Briks

Here is a remnant from Tunisia month, back in January. I've been pretty busy, and generally trying to spend less time sitting and staring at my computer screen. So, as a consequence, I've succeeded in doing a lot less blogging so far this year. That meant that a few of my January Tunisian recipes didn't end up getting posted so I'll bring you a couple of late ones, starting with these briks.

Briks are a popular and common dish in Tunisian cuisine, but these ones are a far cry from the traditional ones! Traditionally they're made with a thicker pastry made with eggs and then deep fried. But I was on a bit of a health kick after Xmas indulgence so I thought I might bake them in flaky filo pastry. Traditional fillings include fish (especially tuna or anchovies), egg, capers, potatoes or cheese. I've made mine using sweet potato (because I love it so much), olives and capers.

Ingredients
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cubed (500g or so)
1/4 cup chopped shallots
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp harissa
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp capers
8-10 black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Filo pastry sheets
Melted vegan butter/margarine 

To Make:
1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C. Boil the sweet potato until just tender. Drain and place in a large bowl. Mash until smooth.
2. Stir through the shallots, olive oil, harissa, cumin, capers, olives and parsley.
3. Take a sheet of filo pastry (keep all the other sheets covered with a damp teatowel while you work to prevent it drying out) and cut it into 3 rectangles. Brush each with melted butter and fold in half so that your rectangle becomes a square. Add a tablespoon of filling to each and fold over to form a triangle. Place on a baking tray and brush the tops with melted butter too. 
4. Continue until you have used up all the mixture. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until just golden brown (keep an eye on them as they will go from "cooked" to "overcooked" very easily).
5. Serve immediately.

Check out my other Tunisian recipe posts:

Cooked Carrot & Olive Salad

{Baked} Tunisian Yoyo (Orange Flavoured Doughnuts)

Mzoura (Harissa Parsnips)

Hlalem (Tunisian Pasta and Beans)

Vegan Choko Gratin (Guadeloupe)

Any excuse to eat chokoes! I love it when my world food challenge countries lead me to chokoes, I'll always choose those recipes :) This dish is gorgeous, it's a creamy white sauce gratin topped with crunchy breadcrumbs. But instead of tender potatoes or cauliflower under that white sauce, it's juicy, melt-in-your-mouth chokoes. The freshness of the buttery chokoes matched with the comforting creamy sauce makes this perfect for all seasons, great baked comfort food for winter, but not heavy so perfect for spring or summer.

I recommend wearing gloves when peeling and chopping the chokoes, as their juices can really irritate your skin!

Ingredients
6-8 large chokoes, peeled, cored & sliced
1/2 cup nuttelex (or other vegan margarine/butter)
2 onions, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup vegetable stock (hot)
2 1/2 cups unsweetened oat milk (or rice/almond milk)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup breadcrumbs

To Make
1. Layer the sliced chokoes in the bottom of a large rectangular baking dish. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Melt the margarine in a medium saucepan and then add the onions and garlic. Cook until softened and translucent.
3. Add the flour and stir vigorously to make a roux. Gradually add the hot vegetable stock, stirring vigorously as you do to keep the roux smooth. Once all the vegetable stock has been added start adding the oat milk, also gradually and while stirring.
4. Once all the milk has been added, stir the roux over a low heat and add the lemon juice and the nutritional yeast. Season to taste with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Pour the white sauce over the top of the sliced chokoes and smooth over evenly. Top with bread crumbs and bake for 40 minutes.

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Guadeloupe!

Check out my other Guadeloupean recipe posts:

Mango Chilli Appetiser

Salsa Piquant

Creole Salsa 

Creole Salsa

Home made salsa is worth every one of the few minute you spend chopping it. The fresh, tangy and vibrant colours and flavours of this great salsa are so far superior to the mushy pulp that comes out of a jar. This creole salsa is delicious with corn chips, on a salad, on a burger or a wrap, toss it through a pasta salad, pile it on a pizza or on toasted bread as bruschetta. You don't need me to tell you what to do with salsa -  you know how many wonderful and delicious opportunities it has. In Guadeloupe it is served on fresh grilled fish and seafood.

Creole salsa is similar to other types of salsa, but with a few added kicks of flavour. If you can't find a vegan Worcestershire sauce, you can leave it out or look online to see if you can make your own vegan version.

Ingredients
3 ripe tomatoes
1/2 Spanish onion
1 fresh jalapeño chilli
1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 cloves fresh garlic
1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp hot chilli sauce (such as Tabasco, Sririacha etc.)
Juice of 2 limes
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
Cracked pepper, to taste

To Make
1. Chop all the ingredients very finely and place in a bowl together. Add the sauces, lime juice, olive oil and salt and pepper.
2. Mix well and refrigerate for an hour or two to let the flavours really meld.

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Guadeloupe!

Check out my other Guadeloupean recipe posts:

Mango Chilli Appetiser

Salsa Piquant

Choko Gratin

Guadeloupean Salsa Piquant

You might take a glance at the ingredients of this salsa and think that "piquant" might be an understatement given the number of ingredients which pack a punch of flavour. In cooking terms, piquant means to have an pleasant and agreeable sharp flavour, and this salsa really lives up to it's name. Yes, it's mostly onion combined with chilli, garlic and vinegar, which might sound like a bit much. But, I can assure it actually really works. Make it a little in advance and let the flavours really meld in the fridge for a while before you serve it. It's great in smallish quantities just like you would use any other salsa. On a salad, on grilled tofu or mushrooms or just on any dish to give it a bit of pep. I particularly recommend it on burgers - it will make your ordinary veggie burger sing like never before!

Salsa Piquant

Ingredients
2 onions, peeled and very finely diced
3-4 shallots, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 fresh jalapeño or green chilli, thinly sliced (I left the seeds in, but you can de seed it if you prefer)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
Cracked pepper, to taste

To Make
1. Combine all the ingredients together and mix well. Keep in the fridge for at least an hour, you can even leave it over night. That's it!

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Guadeloupe!

Check out my other Guadeloupean recipe posts:

Mango Chilli Appetiser

Creole Salsa 

Choko Gratin

Guadeloupean Chilli Mango Appetiser

A fresh appetiser which packs a real flavour punch as an appetiser or a burst of freshness between courses. It looks very simple, but the strong flavours dazzle your mouth with every bite. Keep the portions small if you're having it on it's own, or have it as a mango salsa as part of a meal.

This dish comes from the beautiful French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe - my featured country for this month. It's a challenging country, with strong French creole influences combing with tropical vibrant Caribbean ingredients and even, yep, quite a bit of curry from it's Sri Lankan influences. It makes for a unique combination of dishes and flavours, but all the dishes I made were delicious. They tended towards the simple, but with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables combined to make elegant and beautiful food.

Ingredients
3 ripe mangoes
1 fresh jalapeño chilli, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Juice of 2 limes
Cracked pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

To Make
1. Dice the mangoes and place in a bowl. Add the jalapeño, garlic, lime juice and then add salt and pepper to taste.
2. Mix well and then refrigerate for an hour for the flavours to permeate the mango cubes. Serve in individual small bowls.

This month I'm featuring lots of recipes from Guadeloupe!

Check out my other Guadeloupean recipe posts:

Mango Chilli Appetiser

Salsa Piquant

Creole Salsa 

Choko Gratin

Vegan Orange Curd Swirl Yoghurt with Sunset Fruit Salad

Giving a loved one breakfast in bed is one of the nicest and simplest things you can do for someone, start their day with a wonderful surprise and let them know you're thinking of them. It's a lovely gesture for a partner, parent, best friend or even house mate. My partner's birthday was last month and I always like to make sure he starts it with breakfast in bed. But he's much keener on a lighter start to the day than a fry up, a big breakfast, waffles or even pancakes. After living together for about 3 years now, I'm glad to say I knew him well - his eyes lit up when he saw this beautiful, colourful and fresh breakfast.

That was a while ago, and I've had these photos in my file since. But it seemed like Valentines Day might be a good excuse to share it with you. I'm a firm believer in not indulging too much on Valentines Day (see my post from last year with this fun bouquet of melon hearts), we don't do anything together for it - plus I don't need any more excuses to eat lots of chocolate and drink more. But if you want to do something special and thoughtful for your partner, then this gorgeous breakfast in bed is just the ticket (without encouraging them to be unhealthy).

It's a bit of a cheat - the yoghurt isn't home made - but the delicious flavourful orange curd makes your plain vanilla yoghurt really, really special. Just use your favourite brand of vanilla yoghurt (vegan if you're vegan, of course). You can prepare the Orange Curd Swirl Yoghurt the night before so that it's ready to go in the morning.

I chose these fruits because they were beautifully seasonal, but also because of the vibrant hues that look so lovely together. Feel free to change up the fruits used - but try and stay in the orange and red spectrum because it gives the Sunset fruit salad it's name. :)

Ingredients:
1 tub your favourite vegan vanilla yoghurt
1 mango, seeded and chopped
3 apricots, seeded and chopped
1 punnet strawberries, washed and sliced in half
1 pomegranate, seeds only (you won't need a whole pomegranate, just use as many of the seeds as you like)
2 passion fruits

Vegan Orange Curd
Zest of 1 orange (hint: zest before juicing!)
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (should be about 1 naval orange)
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 heaped tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp turmeric (just for colour, if you make with blood oranges then leave this out)

To Make:
1. First make the curd: Combine all the curd ingredients in a small saucepan and whisk well to combine. The cornstarch will be lumpy at first, but if you keep whisking the lumps with go (it's ok if there are just a few remaining, they'll cook out). If you want to avoid all that whisking then I guess you could use a blender.
2. Place the small saucepan over a medium heat. Whisking constantly, heat it for about 2 minutes - or until the contents of the pan are hot but not simmering or boiling (if it starts to simmer, reduce the heat immediately!). Once hot, reduce the heat and continue stirring for another 3-5 minutes. The curd will thicken suddenly quite a lot. Once this happens remove from the heat (still stirring) and swirl through your bowls of vanilla yoghurt. Chill in the fridge while you make the fruit salad.
3. Place all the chopped fruit in a bowl and toss together. Serve with orange swirl yoghurt.

Serves 2.